M04 - Emotion & Social Cognition Flashcards
What are emotions?
Emotions are sets of physiological responses, actions tendencies and subjective feeling that adaptively engage humans and other animals to react to events of biological and/or individual significance.
Physiology + Behavior + Feeling = Emotion
What components does the categorical theory have?
Basic emotions & Complex emotions
What characteristics do basic emotions have?
- innate
- pan-cultural (across all cultures)
- evolutionarily old
- shared with other species
- expressed particularly through physiological patterns and facial configurations
What characteristics do complex emotions have?
- learned
- socially and culturally shaped
- evolutionarily new
- most evident in humans
- expressed by a combination of the response patterns that characterize basic emotions
What basic emotions are there?
- anger
- sadness
- happiness
- fear
- disgust
- surprise
What is the dimensional theory of emotions?
Describes emotions through a point within a complex space that include two or more continuous dimensions
What dimensional theory models do we have?
Vector model & Circumplex model
Explain the vector model.
- two-dimensional model consists of vectors that point in two directions, representing a “boomerang” shape
- assumes that there is always an underlying arousal dimension, and that valence determines the direction in which a particular emotion lies.
- high arousal states are differentiated by their valence, whereas low arousal states are more neutral and are represented near the meeting point of the vectors.
- most widely used in the testing of a word and picture stimuli
Give an example for the vector model.
For example, a positive valence would shift the emotion up the top vector and a negative valence would shift the emotion down the bottom vector.
Explain the circumplex model.
- suggests that emotions are distributed in a two-dimensional circular space, containing arousal and valence dimensions
- Arousal represents the vertical axis and valence represents the horizontal axis, while the center of the circle represents a neutral valence and a medium level of arousal.
- emotional states can be represented at any level of valence and arousal, or at a neutral level of one or both of these factors.
- most commonly to test stimuli of emotion words, emotional facial expressions, and affective states
What are the theories to classify emotions?
- Categorical theories
- Dimensional theories
- Component-process theories
What does the component-process theory state?
- emotions are fluid (not fixed states)
- Interaction of multiple processes
- relating emotions according to similarity in appraisal (assessment)
- not studied with neuroscience methos much
What brain region was studied in relation to emotions in the 70s and 80s?
Neocortex
What is the recent focus of brain regions related to emotions?
- Vertical integration models, meaning - models that relate limbic systems with a neocortical contribution
- integrated account of emotion processing across many levels of the nervous system
What are vertical integration models?
- models that relate to the limbic systems with neocortical contribution
- integrated account of emotion processing across many levels of nervous system
- focused on relating these levels
of processing with each other and with changes in the body
On which process is the best-characterized integration model based on?
Fear conditioning
Give an example of vertical integration models.
Fear conditioning and fear modification
What is the central brain structure for fear conditioning?
Amygdala
How can you measure fear output?
- skin conductance response
- fear-output startle
- pupil dilation
What structures are mostly involved in fear acquisition?
- Amygdala
- Thalamus
- ACC (anterior cingulate cortex)
What is the rapid subcortical pathway?
Direct input from thalamus to amygdala that bypasses primary sensory cortical reception areas
What is the slower cortical route?
Thalamus to neocortex to amygdala
What are symptoms of amygdala damage?
Reduced startle and Skin Conductance response
Is fear modification necessary over time?
Yes.
What is emotional preservation?
Continuous deployment of cognitive strategies when they are no longer appropriate in problem solving tasks.
What is the hallmark of anxiety disorders?
Emotional perservation
What is fear extinction?
The reduction of fear response due to the uncoupling of unconditioned and conditioned stimuli
Which brain region is important in the extinction of fear?
ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)
What is the effect of stimulating the prefrontal-amygdala pathway?
The stimulation can reduce conditioned fear behavior.
Does the vmPFC affect the amygdala?
Yes.
What are the side effects of humans with vmPFC damage?
Difficulty changing associations between stimuli and reward.
What is a possible treatment for anxiety disorder?
Stimulate the prefrontal-amygdala
What is contextual fear conditioning?
Fear associated with certain places
Which brain area is associated with contextual fear conditioning?
The hippocampus
How does the contextual fear conditioning change when there is a lesion/damage to the hippocampus?
Normal conditioning to cues, but not to context
What is the somatic marker hypothesis?
The somatic marker hypothesis explains the role of emotion in decision making.
What are the components of the somatic marker hypothesis?
factual info - vmPFC - bioregulatory states
(these all in a particular situation)
What is the process of the somatic marker hypothesis?
- Recalling relevant somatic markers which are autonomic, endocrine and musculoskeletal changes of emotional state (feelings in the body that are associated with emotions e.g. heartbeat with anxiety) to a particular situation.
- vmPFC triggers reactivation of somatosensory pattern that describes appropriate emotion(physical sensation in response to recalled emotion) through amygdala
- This process either direct or indirect
Describe the direct and indirect process of the somatic marker hypothesis.
Direct: expression of the appropriate visceral response (loop that involves physical responses) aka direct physical when sth happens
Indirect: stimulating the somatosensory pattern in the insula and somatosensory cortex (simulating the sensations without actually evoking physical changes) aka physical sensation triggered by memory
What are the pros and cons of somatic markers?
Pros:
- permit organisms to make optimal decisions
- emotional state facilitates logical reasoning
Cons:
- cannot solely rely on it because decision options would just be good/bad
How does damage to the vmPFC impact the Iowa Gambling task?
The participant keeps choosing from the riskier deck
With what cognitive functions do emotions interact with?
- fear
- decision making
- perception
- attention
- memory consolidation
How do emotions influence perception and attention?
- prioritization of processing sensory information with emotional significance
- automatic detection of salient features
- attentional bias to process sensory features with emotional significance
What is perceptual awareness?
Emotion-related improvement in perception/attention to emotional words
How is emotion and vision connected?
- Amygdala receives input from late stages of visual processing
- Amygdala provides feedback to all stages of the ventral visual stream
What is the memory modulation hypothesis?
Amygdala enhances memory consolidation in MTL, dIPFC, vlPFC
- by axonal projections
- by release of hormones
How can we regulate emotions?
- situation selection: individual changes behavioral pattern in an antecedent way to avoid the emotional encounter altogether (e.g. fear of flying → always travel by train)
- cognitive reappraisal of negative emotion: interpret meaning of elicitor such that it alters its emotional impact
- compare decreasing negative emotions associated with negative pictures with passively looking at the negative pictures
- increased activity in dorsal frontoparietal attentional network when actively decreasing
- reduced amygdala activity when decreasing negative emotions
How do we understand the action and emotions of others?
- Theory of mind
- Intentional stance (assuming that other’s behave consistent with their current mental state - possibly different from one’s own mental state)
What are mirror neurons?
Neurons increase activity when passively viewing someone else’s action
Why do mirror neurons exist?
- Provide means for understanding social actions
- Link between perceptual and motor established simply by experience
What areas of the brain get activated when taking a third-person perspective?
- vmPFC
- paracingulate cortex
- temporal polar cortex
- superior temporal sulcus
What 4 components are in the model of empathy (explain)?
Emotion sharing:
- automatic perception-action coupling and shared somatic-emotional representation relying on somatosensory cortex, insula and ACC
Self-awareness:
- distinction between self and other: processing in parietal lobe, PFC and insula
Mental flexibility:
- adopt perspectives of someone else: medial and dorsolateral PFC
Emotion regulation:
- emotional and somatic states generated by engaging executive control mechanisms in ACC, lateral and vmPFC
Give an example of direct reactivation in somatic marker hypothesis.
We see something scary, feel fear, our heart starts beating and sweaty palms
Give an example of indirect reactivation in somatic marker hypothesis.
If we had a bad experience with a dog before, we feel anxious whenever we see a dog, even if it’s friendly.
